


The Delusion Of Negation

by eerialmercurial



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Mental Health Issues, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Self-Harm, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 18:59:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6869446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerialmercurial/pseuds/eerialmercurial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How can you treat someone who’s already dead?”</p>
<p>“You are not dead Mr. Barnes.” </p>
<p>“Of course I am,” he said, “Can’t you see it?” He raised his metal arm, twisting it so the plates shone in the light. “What kind of living person has something like this?”</p>
<p>“You, Mr. Barnes.” </p>
<p>“No. Hydra killed me years ago. And this must be hell."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Delusion Of Negation

Steve found him under an overpass. He was lying under a tarp pitched like a pup tent over a pile of dirty clothes and blankets. 

When he saw Steve, he laughed. 

“Will you come with me?” Steve said.

“Do I have a choice?” he asked. 

\--

They took him to Avengers Tower, formerly Stark Tower. Bucky’s eyes roved over the glass facade before they disappeared into the underground garage. 

“We’re not...keeping you a prisoner here,” Steve said. “You have a choice. You can leave.”

Bucky laughed. As if he had ever had a choice. As if his choices hadn’t narrowed and disappeared altogether since the day he was unborn and remade. 

He was suddenly in a room, far away from the garage. The air smelled filtered, and the walls were painted a pale yellow - he was sitting on a leather chair. The smell filled his nostrils and he nearly gagged. 

“Mr. Barnes?” 

A woman was sitting in a matching chair across from him. She was small, light-skinned, Asian, probably mid-thirties. Her eyes stared into his, unflinching. 

“We were just discussing your options Mr. Barnes. Do you remember?”

“No,” he said flatly. 

She carried on placidly as though assassins with memory problems were an everyday occurrence for her. Who knows, maybe they were. 

“I’m Dr. Therese Liang. You are in Avengers Tower. It is March first, two thousand and fourteen.” 

Barnes liked the way she said the year, stringing all the words together as one number. 

“Do you know why you are here?”

“Because I’m dangerous,” he said. “Because you need to keep me contained.” 

Dr. Liang pursed her lips. “That may be so. But you are here with me because you need treatment.” 

Barnes laughed. “How can you treat someone who’s already dead?”

The intensity of Dr. Liang’s gaze suddenly flared, fire bright. “You are not dead Mr. Barnes.” 

“Of course I am,” he said, “Can’t you see it?” He raised his metal arm, twisting it so the plates shone in the light. “What kind of living person has something like this?”

“You, Mr. Barnes.” 

“No. Hydra killed me years ago. And this must be hell. What else could it be?” 

\--

They put him in a very nice prison. The walls were painted a gentle, sky blue and there were windows high up through which he could catch glimpses of clouds and skyscrapers around him. He couldn’t reach them, but it didn’t matter. If he broke out of hell, where would he go? 

“You’re not in Hell, Buck.” Steve said. 

Bucky leveled his eyes on him. “Of course I am, Stevie. What I can’t figure out is why you’re here with me.” Bucky took a sip of the tea they had given him. It was sweet, but there was a bitterness underneath he could relate to. 

“Maybe you’re safe in Brooklyn, if you haven’t killed yourself fighting yet." A sudden thought occurred to Bucky. "If you’re dead. I think your ghost must be here to haunt me. It was probably my fault. I should have. Been there. To. Protect you.”

“I’m not dead Bucky! I’m right here in front of you!” 

Bucky looked at him, a gentle sort of sadness in his gaze. “If you’re really here, then this. Really is hell. Everyone we know is dead. I murdered for Hydra. New York is gone. There's just this - horrible future. I can’t think of anything worse than this.” Bucky turned his eyes to the mug cradled loosely in his hands. “And even though you’re dead. Or a ghost. You’re still the giant you. Not the little Stevie I grew up with. Where else would I be but hell?”

Steve flinched back in his seat as though struck. “Buck,” he said, voice like an open wound. Bucky just stared at his tea, rolling the cup between his palms, one flesh and one silver. 

\--

“I think Hydra took my heart,” he said. 

“Why’s that?” asked Dr. Liang. 

“My chest feels hollow. Painful. I know Hydra took my arm. Who’s to say they didn’t take something else while they were at it?” 

Dr. Liang looked at him thoughtfully. “Would it help to see if you have a heart or not? There are certain non-invasive scans we can do.”

Bucky laughed. “Why would I believe anything you showed me? It’s all here to torture me, so why wouldn’t you say I have a heart when it’s gone?” 

“Mr. Barnes, I assure you - I am not here to torture you,” Dr. Liang said mildly. 

Bucky sighed and looked down at his hands, at the leathery arm of the couch, so like the arms of the chair. “Of course not. Of course not.” 

\--

Bucky was heaving for breath, staring blankly at the mirror. The fluorescent light overhead flickered dangerously, and there was a spiderweb fracture in the mirror. He looked down at his right hand, still closed tightly in a fist with blood on his knuckles. He was shaking. 

His legs failed him, and he stumbled into sitting on the edge of the bathtub built smoothly into the floor of the tiny bathroom. 

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice echoed slightly into the bathroom. Bucky tried to take deep breaths in and out, like Dr. Liang had taught him. He was shaking too badly for it too have much effect, though. 

Steve burst into the bathroom, big frame taking up most of the doorway, blocking the only exit. Bucky started shaking worse. 

Steve immediately saw the blood on the mirror, the blood on Bucky’s hand. “Are you okay?” he asked, frantic. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky said dully, rotating his injured hand. He wiggled the fingers at Steve. “No breaks.” He smiled wryly. “Everything’s fine.” 

“Bucky,” Steve said, big blue eyes staring mournfully at him. “How much time did you lose?” 

“Who told you I’ve been. Losing time?” Bucky asked. 

“You did. Don’t you remember?” Steve was starting to panic. 

“No,” Bucky said dully, his eyes sliding right past Steve to the small room that had become his own. The only thing he had now. 

\--

“This is a magnetic image resonance machine. It’s going to send small pulses of radio waves through your brain, and with those pulses we can get an image.”

Bucky stared dully at the large, white tomb they were going to feed him to. 

“It’s going to be very loud, but it’s important not to move once you’re in there. We will have to start the process over again if we don’t get a clear image of your brain.” 

He knows a threat when he hears one. 

He lays down in his paper gown on the table, remembering the many times Hydra cut him open on a table like this one. He was wondering when it was going to start. After all, it is hell. No reason for them not to repeat the same tortures that had proven so effective before. He wonders if the waiting was a kind of torture, too. 

The table moves into the machine. It’s white, and he thinks of wind whistling past his ears, Steve’s sad face getting smaller, the stark white all around him when he landed. He blinks, and he’s standing in his paper gown in front of a series of brightly lit screens, ghost like images pinned to them. 

“That’s. My brain.”

“Yes,” the doctor in the white coat says. It’s clear this isn’t the first time he’s asked. It’s clear the doctor is getting tired of this question. Bucky’s brain shies away from what happens when doctors tire of him. 

“And what’s wrong, again?” Steve asks, clearly for Bucky’s benefit. 

“There is massive trauma here, here, and here-” The doctor gestures at darker, bruised looking spots on the scans, “This is definitely contributing to the patient’s delusions and dissociation.” 

“The patient is right here. Talk to him.” Steve says, a glower on his face to match the one he wore in their youth, whenever some idiot would treat Bucky like Steve’s keeper, and Bucky would hand them off to Steve’s righteous ire. 

The doctor clearly sucked in an irritated sigh. “The brain damage isn’t helping you, and along with whatever trauma you’re dealing with - I can’t know if you’ll ever recover.”

Bucky blinked dumbly at the doctor. How do you recover from death?

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first bit of writing in a long time. I'm beginning to wonder if I know how to write in anything but poetical. No beta, so feel free to point out any editorial mistakes, and as always, concrit is adored.


End file.
